Character Animations/Stunting/Moves

[Grunty]

A stylish game needs to have stylish animations, moves and stunts.
I think this would be a good place to post ideas on how people would want the characters to flow:
when they're moving
dodging
jumping
resting animation (not moving)
stunt ideas and what they would look like
Melee moves suggestions

I really like the idea of having the character, when he's running with a weapon, to have his or her arms move if they are not shooting
say they're dual wielding pistols, when the character runs, the first person view would be the guns moving up and down with their arms
while third person model would be the guns swinging back and forth with their arms

[Dan]

Dudes in older action movies never tended to shoot single pistols with two hands because shooting with one hand looked cooler. I think single pistol shooting should look like this:



Maybe with the left arm held a little lower.

For rifles or SMGs, I think there should be a hip shoot animation and a shoulder fire animation. Not like a tacticool SWAT dude shoulder animation though, I think like halfway between the hip and shoulder with the dude's head cocked a little bit backwards. I can't find a picture of it, think maybe Scarface or something.

EDIT: Like this:

For running animations:


And if there's an M60 in the game, it should handle like so:

[TheOtherChris]

All of today's international men of mystery (Jason Bourne, James Bond 2000 series, "The American", Tom Cruise in Collateral and MI:III, etc.) went to the Krav Maga school of tacticool shooting, even the old guys from The Expendables had to be re-schooled from their old ways.

Scientology alert:

ProTip: show

But one handed shootan is also the essence of older action movies. Maybe it could be context based? If you are walking or running, you shoot it one handed, if you are crouching you do the tacticool duckwalk (since Vino has mentioned thinking about the addition of more accurate fire from crouched positioning). If this change in stance was reflected by the v model aswell (not iron-sights per say, but centering the gun and looking over the front sight), it could also give the player a visual key for when they're standing and when they're crouched, which while not hard to tell apart normally, is an effect adding a dynamic feel to your movements.

[Wish]

I'd have it the other way around - two hands while running, one handed awesome pose while standing still.

[Shogi]

I'd have it the other way around - two hands while running, one handed awesome pose while standing still.

Agreed, more logical. Two hands helps stabilize you gun better than 1 hand which is necessary while running, not so much when standing still.

[TOGSolid]

I'd have it the other way around - two hands while running, one handed awesome pose while standing still.

Second, it just looks more correct that way.

[Shogi]

We haven't really even discussed what stunts there will be. Obviously I'm no expert, but I think it's safe to say UDK would allow us to add some new tricks. Dives and flips can stay no doubt, wallflips and wallhumps should stay (though I've always felt the latter should be tweaked). Cat rolls and cart wheels could be fun, as well as a feet first slide/skid and maybe we could finally figure out how to get side shooting going. Taking a cue from Stanglehold, I think we should explore some environment stunts like cart slides, rail slides, maybe even some zip line action. I think before TS 3 came out I talked up the idea of even being able to stunt off other players.

[TheOtherChris]

Wall stunting, double jumps and dashing is in UT3 by default, atleast.

[raidyr]

Some kind of Crysis 2 esque floor sliding would be fucking awesome.

[Daniel]

Wall stunts should be completely rehashed. Wallhumping is something we should not have to revisit.

[Antagonist]

I think having most of the shit from Mirror's Edge would be completely possible, complete with that kind of floor slide, even if we have dumbed down animations. Morfeo even had ledge climbing like in Tomb Raider in an early version of TS but he removed it because it hampered gameplay (on the gold src engine). Having quick parkouring would definitely work in a fast paced U3 engine game. :9

And yeah, wall humping looks completely retarded. Fuck that noise. Wall bounce and short wall runs would be much more fun. AAAAND to balance wallruns, you need to be using a weapon that doesn't require you to have a stock against your shoulder to fire.

[TheOtherChris]

The value of the wall hump was giving the player a chance to control his vertical traveling on walls with unusual freedom and feel to it. You knew more or less exactly how far you would propell yourself with each tap, without your character doing some auto-scaling of walls like it is usually done in games (Mirror's Edge, Ninja Gayden, Ass Creed etc.)

The problem was that it looked stupid.

It could be semi revisited: Each tap of the jump button could represent each step on the wall, and you'd have to tap it in a relatively quick succession to actually run up a wall. Depending on your angle of approach, you would run more or less vertical/horizontal. The number of wall steps you can take would depend on the speed of your running: the faster you run, the more steps you can take, somewhere between 3 to 5. This would encourage players who want to be speed freak traceurs like Jackie Chan to keep their momentum and flow by picking good strategies in how they approach obstacles, without relying on boosting!

EDIT:
This way, a single "wallhump", let's call it "wall step" from now on, would be useful on its own. The old TS wallhumps were less useful in single fire. A single wall step could redirect your character, allows you to reach ledges or allow you to flip off with a tap of the stunt key.

[Antagonist]

I think you are on to something here. I don't quite know how to add to it but I think that what you said about wall humping giving a player more control is actually true. I just think it looks and feels kind of dumb in the way it exists in TS.

Maybe holding the jump key after that initial "wall step" would make you stick to the wall for four more steps that you could control. The camera could shift to be a little on the side, sort of like in Alien vs Predator when you play as an Alien that can scale walls. U3 has a great camera system, in that it doesn't feel fucked up if you're standing on a wall. I've played on maps that have players fight, standing on all surfaces of a room. It was fun shit.

[TheOtherChris]

Another thing I feel very strongly about is Alt. animations. Besides the obvious ones, like different draw and reloads for empty guns and those with chambered rounds, when standing and when lying down, I'd like a few alt. anims for other things aswell. While you usually do standard things like reload guns and such in more or less the exact same way each time, since it's drilled in, there could be slight differences (slightly different angles on the gun, some times you might tap a STANAG mag twice rapidly instead of once with power, etc.) and moves like dives, kicks, flips, etc. depend more on context.

If you are running at moderate speed, you could do a forward flip without losing much momentum as you land. When running at full speed you're more likely to want to do a "gainer", sort of a backflip but propelled forward, in order to keep running upon landing. A dive from a full speed run should have your animation look more like a crash than a TS landing.

EDIT:
Fighting on walls and in the ceiling sounds fun. Could we have a Zero-G level on a space station with US Space Blops vs CCCP Spetsnaz kosmonaut rangers?
EDIT 2:
Fuck yeah, gameplay kinda like Inception's Zero-G fighting. The story of this game could be alternate future, with the Soviets still going strong and the Reagan era action heroes still awaiting retirement.

[Grunty]

Some kind of Crysis 2 esque floor sliding would be fucking awesome.

That's a good idea, a floor slide type of animation can be also a melee move.
It's great for light gun and fu users who want to get close, and fast. Those who use it right, can have a small advantage over slower moving targets with high powered weapons, especially for fu users.
It's also not overpowered if implemented right, the slide doesn't go very far, and you cannot control right or left once you started sliding, thus for those who spot a slider can easily dodge it.

Also, TF2 has cool character animations, i'm thinking about the engy and the spy.
When the Engy runs backwards with his pistol, both his hands grip the pistol. Usually he is holding the pistol with one hand.
Same thing for Spy, when crouching, he would hold his revolver with both hands.
I think it would be neat to have small things like this in this new game